eco Awards Categories and Criteria

Cross-Category Criteria

Decisive criteria for the expert jury are:

  • Uniqueness: What makes your solution unique on the market? Can the unique selling points be used as sales arguments
  • Innovation: To what extent is your solution truly innovative or even revolutionary?
  • Competitive environment: Who does something comparable – why is your solution better?
  • Specific benefits: For whom is your solution important, and what needs does it address?
  • Features: Is your solution convincing in terms of quality, security, flexibility and usability?
  • Reach: Who are the (potential) customers and users?
  • Significance: What are the wider implications of your solution for the economy, society or the environment?

2021 Categories

eco Award 2021: Kategorien 2 Cloud & Hosting

Are you using innovative IT concepts to ensure that your customers achieve real added-value with the cloud?

Is your IT service offering for the cloud characterised by especially high quality, security, interoperability or high performance in opening up new markets?

Or do you excel in terms of a fast, reliable, stable and secure hosting offer and innovative solutions to meet individual requirements?

Who can apply?

Companies with:

  • a service offering in the field of cloud computing or cloud hosting

Content of the application

Aspects of the application for the Awards can, for example, include:

  • innovative IT concepts/solutions
  • unique services or service functions
  •  non-standard market offers

Further criteria

In addition to the cross-category criteria, the following aspects are especially important for the jury’s evaluation:

  • Can the service function be categorized and does it offer precisely defined added value?
  • Is your offer characterized by unique and non-standard market services?
  • Is there any proof of quality for the service (e.g., seal of quality, certification, attestation)?
  • Is the service distinguished through special security features (e.g., DDoS prevention etc.)?
  • Are there any certificates (e.g., Star Audit, Code of Conduct, C5 etc.) which prove that your service is GDPR-compliant?
  • Can it be connected to other systems/services via interfaces?
  • How open is the architecture? Is the service interoperable and portable?
  • How process-relevant is the service?
  • Are there significant customer references?
  • How high is the user-friendliness/customer-friendliness of the service?
  • How high is the innovation factor?

Your contact person

 

Peter Koller

peter.koller(at)eco.de

eco Award 2021: Kategorien Datacenter Infrastructure

Are you a solution provider or an operator of Internet infrastructures? Do your innovative concepts and tools make data centre operation particularly energy and resource-efficient, redundant and fail-proof, highly scalable, physically secure or particularly high-performance?

Do your solutions or services offer your customers a unique market advantage, and stand out due to their innovative power?

Are you breaking ground in marketing your services or products, or are you conquering new business areas in all areas of digitalisation?

Who can apply?

The option to apply is open to any company:

  • who commercially operates a data centre, and
  • whose business model ranges from micro and edge data centres to hosting & housing, managed services, cloud, colocation or shell & core
    as well as to:
  • planning and architecture offices, technology partners/equipment suppliers and data centre customers, provided they make the submission jointly with a data centre operator

Content of the application

Aspects of the application for the Awards can, for example, include:

  • reliable power supply
  • sustainable climate control & cooling
  • fully automated process optimisation/DCIM
  • unique security concepts & access processes
  • flexible cabling concepts
  • outstanding data centre design and architecture concepts

Further criteria

In addition to the cross-category criteria, the following aspects are especially important for the jury’s evaluation:

Usability

  • How unique is the product or service in the market?
  • How quickly can the product or concept be implemented, scaled or updated?
  • How well and how quickly is the operator/user helped when they have problems?

 

Quality Aspects

  • How stable, secure, scalable and reliable is the product/service?
  • How sustainable, environmentally-friendly and efficient is the implemented product or service?
  • Which seals of quality/certificate/audits does the product or service have?

Your contact person

Roland Broch
Roland Broch

roland.broch(at)eco.de

eco Award 2021 5 Sustainability

Sustainability is an important factor for the future and is at the same time a driver of innovation and new technologies, enabling the conservation of resources in the long term.

We are looking for companies from the digital and Internet industry that promote the topic of sustainability with concrete solutions, technologies and applications, or whose own actions make them particularly sustainable. Is your company climate-neutral, climate-positive or do you have a solution that helps others to act sustainably? Do you use recycled raw materials, save emissions or energy through smart systems, or does your service/product help others to otherwise utilise waste energy?

Who can apply?

Companies from the digital and Internet industry.

Content of the application

Aspects of the application for the Awards can, for example, include:

  • sustainable solutions, technologies and applications

Further criteria

In addition to the cross-category criteria, the following aspects are especially important for the jury’s evaluation:

  • Visible or tangible benefits/added value of the company/product/service/project in terms of sustainability
  • A prominent focus within the company on resource-saving aspects and operations with a focus on sustainability
  • Sustainability of the offer in terms of long-term environmentally-friendly action and climate-friendly added values of the product/service/project, as opposed to short-term solutions and applications

 

Your contact person

Tatjana Hein

 

Tatjana Hein

tatjana.hein(at)eco.de

eco Award 2021: Kategorien 1 Security

Do you offer an exceptional IT service or product that decisively contributes to the security of company networks, endpoints, internal processes and structures, or the end user?

Do your IT security solutions contribute significantly to the long-term economic success of your customers?

Did your service or product help companies to get safely through the crisis?

Who can apply?

Companies/ initiatives can apply if:

  • the service/ product is clearly outlined and the scope of service is publicly verifiable
  • the service/ product is available on the market and can be booked/ordered
  • the target group is well-defined
  • there is at least one documented customer reference

Content of the application

Aspects of the application for the Awards can, for example, include:

  • an exceptional service
  • an exceptional product
  • IT security solutions

Further criteria

In addition to the cross-category criteria, the following aspects are especially important for the jury’s evaluation:

  • the service/product can be readily integrated into existing processes/architectures
  • a proof of quality for the service/product exists (e.g., seals of quality, certifications, attestation).
  • the service/product is user-friendly
  • the service/product is particularly strong in terms of sparing data

Your contact person

Quantencomputing 2

 

Cornelia Schildt
cornelia.schildt(at)eco.de

eco Award 2021 2 Start-ups

We are looking for start-ups that offer innovative business models, digital services or IT products, in order to deliver significant added value for the economy, environment and society.

Would you like to present your start-up to a large professional audience?

Who can apply?

The companies founded by the nominees must be start-ups and must fulfil the following criteria:

  • the start-up company is younger than 5 years, and
  • has a (planned) growth in employees/turnover, and/or
  • is (highly) innovative in terms of its products, services, business models and/or technologies

Content of the application

Aspects of the application for the Awards can, for example, include:

  • innovative business models
  • digital services
  • IT products

Further criteria

In addition to the cross-category criteria, the following aspects are especially important for the jury’s evaluation:

  • the innovative character of the business concept
  • the growth potential of the company
  • the relevance of the innovation for society, environment and the economy
  • benefits for users/operators

Your contact person

Data Center Expert Summit 2021 2

 

Hubert Martens
hubert.martens(at)eco.de

eco Award 2021 4 Ladies in Tech

For the #LiT – Ladies in Tech Award, we’re looking for the best of the best. The thinking behind the #LiT – Ladies in Tech Award is all about networking and community: With the Award, we want to give outstanding women in the Internet industry an even higher level of visibility and to honour their special commitment to diversity and female empowerment. Inspiring female specialists or executives of the Internet industry are therefore open for nomination. You can either nominate yourself or other individuals.

Who can apply?

Nominations are therefore open for inspiring female specialists and executives of the Internet industry. You can either nominate yourself or other individuals. Nominations for the eco Awards in the #LiT – Ladies in Tech category are free of charge.

Content of the application

Aspects of the application for the Awards can, for example, include:

  • mentoring/coaching programmes
  • activities in women’s networks
  • promotion of young talent
  • digital education
  • networking of women in tech
  • social media use and visibility
  • activity as an author or speaker

Further criteria

In addition to the cross-category criteria, the following aspects are especially important for the jury’s evaluation:

Empowerment

  • Where and how does the female specialist or executive advocate for other women? (e.g., in the form of mentoring/coaching, activities in women’s networks, promotion of young talent, digital education, networking of women in tech)?

 

Visibility

  • To what extent is the female specialist or executive visible in relation to the topic of “Women in Tech”? (e.g., via social media use and visibility, interviews, guest in podcasts, activity as an author or speaker)

 

Digitalisation/Tech/IT

  • What expertise in the field of digitalisation/tech/IT does the female specialist or executive possess? To what extent is she a driver of digital transformation?

Your contact person

Hanna von der Au

 

Hanna von der Au
hanna.vanderau(at)eco.de